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Madama Butterfly: the Mythology

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Madama Butterfly: the Mythology MADAMA BUTTERFLY: THE MYTHOLOGY or HOW IMPERIALISM AND THE PATRIARCHY CRUSHED BUTTERFLY’S WINGS by ADRIANA V. NIEVES A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Honors in the Major Program in Music Performance in the College of Arts and Humanities and in The Burnett Honors College at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Fall Term 2014 Thesis Chair: Dr. Scott Warfield ABSTRACT As a popular historic work with constant and worldwide performances, the sexist and racist narratives disseminated by Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly causes harmful social and political ramifications. Many scholars point to this opera specifically when discussing the fetishization of Asian females, and mention the title character as the quintessential example of damaging stereotypes. Thus, I conduct a postcolonial and feminist reading of Madama Butterfly, through analysis of the opera’s libretto, the libretto sources, and the opera’s score. I unravel the Orientalist assumptions that make up the foundation of the Butterfly narrative, and trace them as they make their way into Puccini’s opera. I re-read Madama Butterfly as a metaphor for imperialism, and its effects on the colonized psyche. I examine Lieutenant Pinkerton and Butterfly’s characters with specific attention to the power dynamics of their relationship in the context of colonization. I emphasize gender, race, and class tensions evident within the white male and white female gazes on the bodies of third world women of color. I present Puccini’s musical choices in the operatic score as supplementary to my postcolonial-feminist reading. Puccini’s use of pentatonic scales to evoke “Oriental” sounds, as well as his appropriation of Japanese folk tunes and “The Star Spangled Banner” into the score serve to supplement my basic contentions that Madama Butterfly is a product of Oriental discourse and a metaphor for imperialism and its effect on the colonized psyche. ii DEDICATION I would like to dedicate this thesis to all those generations of people that suffered and continue to suffer the effects of colonialism and imperialism, as well as negative representations in the media as a result. You deserve better. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my parents, friends, and family for their support and love; my thesis chair, Dr. Warfield, for all of his help, guidance, and encouragement; my wonderful social justice mother, Dr. Shelley Park, for enlightening me with wisdom and arming me with critical thinking; my song literature professor, Dr. Hunt, for showing me how to listen to music. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 1. An Introduction to Butterfly and Postcolonial Criticism................................................................ 3 Cultural Hegemony ................................................................................................................................ 3 European Subjectivity and Imperialism ............................................................................................... 5 Postcolonialism........................................................................................................................................ 7 Orientalism ........................................................................................................................................... 8 The Psychology of the Colonized ...................................................................................................... 12 Feminist theory ..................................................................................................................................... 16 Liberal feminism ................................................................................................................................ 17 Radical feminism................................................................................................................................ 18 Multicultural socialist feminism and intersectionality ....................................................................... 19 2. The Butterfly Narrative .......................................................................................................... 21 From Chrysanthème to Butterfly: A Metamorphosis of Texts .......................................................... 21 Japonisme ........................................................................................................................................... 22 Butterfly: the Origins ......................................................................................................................... 23 The Opening of Japan.................................................................................................................................... 24 The Butterfly Formula ........................................................................................................................ 24 Madame Chrysanthème (1888) .......................................................................................................... 25 Fetishization .................................................................................................................................................. 27 “Madame Butterfly” (1898) ............................................................................................................... 29 Madame Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan (1900) ................................................................................. 34 Madama Butterfly (1904) ................................................................................................................... 38 v 3. Puccini Sets Japan................................................................................................................... 43 Orientalism in Music ............................................................................................................................ 52 Exoticism ............................................................................................................................................ 53 Orientalism in the Butterfly score ...................................................................................................... 55 “Puccini’s Music Box” .................................................................................................................................. 57 4. Butterfly: The Myth, the Metaphor, the Motherland, and Maelstrom ............................. 60 The Myth ............................................................................................................................................... 60 Butterfly as Geisha ............................................................................................................................. 60 Butterfly as Other .......................................................................................................................................... 63 The Metaphor ....................................................................................................................................... 65 Capitalist Imperialism and the Motherland ........................................................................................ 71 Butterfly as a Colonized Psyche .......................................................................................................... 73 5. Fin ............................................................................................................................................. 78 Madama Butterfly Meets the 21st Century .......................................................................................... 79 The NPO Opera del Popolo and Minnano Opera Revision ................................................................ 79 The Metropolitan Opera Interpretation .............................................................................................. 80 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 81 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................ 83 vi List of Tables Table 1: The Occident versus the Orient ...................................................................................... 11 Table 2: Translation of Butterfly, Act I ........................................................................................ 66 vii List of Figures Figure 1: Japanese National Anthem, “Kimigayo” ....................................................................... 44 Figure 2: Cherry Blossom Song, “Sakura” ................................................................................... 45 Figure 3: Japanese Song, "O-Edo-Nihonbushi" ............................................................................ 45 Figure 4: Japanese Song, "Miyasan" ............................................................................................ 46 Figure 5: Japanese Prayer Melody, “Takai-Yama” ...................................................................... 47 Figure 6: Japanese Folksong ......................................................................................................... 47 Figure 7: "Echigo-Jishi" by Kineya Rokuzaemon IX ................................................................... 48 Figure 8: "Ume no haru" ..............................................................................................................
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